Cast members Issa Rae, Lauren Velez, Shameik Moore, Daniel Kaluuya, Jake Johnson and Hailee Steinfeld attend the premiere for Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse in Los Angeles, California, U.S., May 30, 2023. (REUTERS/File Photo)
LOS ANGELES – Audiences swung into theaters for “Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse,” giving the animated film a hefty $120.5 million in its domestic box office debut, the second-biggest opening weekend of the year.
Behind only “The Super Mario Bros” film that garnered $146 million, the movie’s box office performance surpassed Sony Pictures Animation’s and the BoxOffice Pro’s estimates of $75 million to $115.5 million over its first three days of release in the U.S. and Canada from Pro.
The original “Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse” raked in over $35 million during its first three days of release in December 2018 and won the Oscar for best animated feature film. The sequel, “Across the Spider-Verse,” which premiered in theaters on June 2, brought in three times the revenue in its opening weekend.
Producer Amy Pascal announced during the film’s Los Angeles premiere that there are more Spider-Verse projects on the way.
“You’ll see all of it,” she told Variety when asked if there are live-action Mile Morales and Spider-Woman movies in the making. “It’s all happening.”
The movie brought in $208.6 million worldwide, according to Comscore, and sparked speculation about its Oscar prospects, with the film receiving a 95% score from critics and a 96% from audiences on the review aggregator, Rotten Tomatoes.
Spider-Man beat the “rotten” rating from film critics of 59% for Universal Pictures’ “Super Mario Bros” and ties with the audience score with 95% for the video game flick. gsg